The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
12 — Wednesday, March 10, 2021 
statement

Nostalgia in the time of COVID

BY EMILY BLUMBERG, STATEMENT COLUMNIST

I

t was yet another lonely, end-
less night in the spring of 2020 
spent 
mindlessly 
rewatching 

“Parks and Recreation” for the third 
time. The painfully familiar feeling 
of restlessness washed over me — 
my glossy eyes began to burn from 
countless hours of screen time and 
my brain’s insatiable appetite for 
unachievable social stimulation had 
returned. I shifted my position in 
my teal and pink chevron-patterned 
childhood bed as a desperate attempt 
to feel any remote sense of change. 
All was calm and yet little was well. 

Suddenly, a sound I hadn’t heard 

since my preschool days blared out 
of my phone’s speaker: the gritty, 
pixelated music of early 2000s chil-
dren’s computer games. I felt a rush 
of serotonin as I pulled a long forgot-
ten memory out of my brain’s deep-
est crevices. For the first time in the 
weeks since the shutdowns of mid-
March 2020, I had actually felt some-
thing. 

I had randomly stumbled upon 

a TikTok showcasing an old Holly 
Hobbie game I suddenly remembered 
playing as a kid on an account called 
@noughtienostalgia. 
Hearing 
the 

forgotten yet familiar “Hi! I’m Holly! 
And I’m Perri. Amy here! And we’re 
the Hey Girls!” was the most exciting 
event I had experienced in almost 
three months. It whisked me right 
back to staring at my dad’s clunky old 
computer, choosing sparkly dresses 
for my Polly Pockets and baking cup-
cakes with Barbie. 

The pure, unadulterated excite-

ment of rediscovering a silly, mind-
less computer game I hadn’t played 
in over a decade allowed me to travel 
back to what felt like simpler times. 
For just one minute, it was if I had 

reverted back to being four years old, 
pink Barbie brand glasses and all. 

I spent the rest of that lonely night 

diving deep into the abyss of child-
hood memories on the brink of be-
ing forgotten. I chased that nostalgic 
high until I had drained every ounce 
of my curiosity. 

Nostalgia is an undoubtedly and 

underratedly powerful emotion. It’s 
what drives your best friend to get 
back with their clearly problematic 
ex-boyfriend and what convinces col-
lege students to blast Hannah Mon-
tana’s Greatest Hits at pregames. It 
gives bygone music artists the chance 
to milk their last profits through re-
union tours and draws viewers’ at-
tention to bland reboots of once 
successful TV shows, like “Fuller 
House” or “Arrested Development: 
Fateful Consequences.” It’s what 
drove me to spend an embarrassing 
amount of time trying to redownload 
Adobe Flash Player on my computer 
so I could play “Holly Hobbie and 
Friends Muffin Maker.”

Nostalgia, defined by Oxford Lan-

guages as a sentimental longing or 
wistful affection for the past, can 
be a positive emotion. Studies have 
shown that nostalgia in healthy doses 
can provide us with feelings of conti-
nuity and purpose in our lives. 

As New York Times columnist John 

Tierney wrote in his piece “What is 
Nostalgia Good For?”: “When people 
speak wistfully of the past, they typi-
cally become more optimistic and in-
spired about the future.” 

Hearing songs or seeing photos 

that spark old memories of an el-
ementary school graduation or fam-
ily vacation can remind us of how 
far we’ve come. Acknowledging our 
pasts allows us to understand the 

scope of our lives and find meaning 
in personal growth and development. 
It prompts us to reconnect with old, 
cherished friends and appreciate 
what may seem like simpler times.
I 

felt trapped in my childhood 
home and chose to spend my 
days unproductively waiting for 

an alternate reality to swoop in and 
create some miraculous COVID-19 
cure that, of course, never arrived. 
Rediscovering those silly, low-qual-
ity Holly Hobbie games gave me a 
sense of purpose in a time of extreme 
uncertainty. Reminding myself of 
such a random yet warm childhood 
experience inspired me to appreciate 
every moment of that forced family 
time I could because I would hope-
fully be leaving for college in a few 
short months. I was put back on track 
and focusing on how I could make the 
most of our family quarantine rather 
than angrily ponder what experienc-
es I was being forced to miss. Those 
games brought me back to simply be-
ing young, easily fascinated by every 
object, activity and person that en-
tered my life; but more importantly, 
they reminded me of the atmosphere 
of my childhood — the comfortable 
feeling of being entrenched in famil-
ial love. It reminded me to be eternal-
ly grateful for the endless sacrifices 
made out of compassion so that I 
could go to school each day and come 
home excited to experience the fun 
that was in store. My parents worked 
tirelessly to ensure my happiness, 
even in times of extreme financial 
difficulty like the 2008 recession. My 
grandparents came over rather than 
spending a night with their friends 
to give my parents a break, simul-
taneously providing me with all the 
love I could dream of. And the ironic 

beauty of it all is that they were so 
successful that my biggest concerns 
as a child were choosing what color 
icing to put on my virtual Holly Hob-
bie muffins.

In an interview with The Michi-

gan Daily, Hollis Griffin, an LSA 
Communication and Media profes-
sor, discussed how we often utilize 
nostalgia as a comforting tool to 
soften the blow of a currently stress-
ful reality. 

“I think there’s a way of looking 

back that is understanding the past 
as somehow simpler and more desir-
able than the present moment,” Grif-
fin said. “We tend to look back when 
we’re nervous about what’s going on 
around us in the present, and there’s 
a way in which when you’re nervous 
about, express trepidation about or 
have kind of wary cautious feelings 
about something going on in your 
immediate surroundings, there’s a 
way in which looking back is deeply 
comforting.”

Nostalgia can be wonderful. It can 

bring us back to our roots and revive 
our excitement for the pure, simple 
joys of being alive. But like anything, 
excessive focus on the past can hin-
der our personal progress. Spending 
our days reminiscing may cause us to 
neglect the necessity of moving for-
ward. 

When does it get to be too much? 

When does rewatching “Friends” for 
the nth time transition from harm-
less reminiscence into an emotional 
downward spiral driven by rever-
sion? Where is the line between ap-
preciation and excessive longing for 
times we will never get back? 

It’s tempting to get wrapped up 

in reliving what seems like the glo-
ry days, particularly in a pandemic, 
where daily life often feels simul-
taneously monotoaI have spent so 
much of this time reminiscing on 
simpler days that I have lost almost a 
year and counting’s worth of poten-
tial memories. 

Hollis also noted humans’ tenden-

cy to oversimplify the past. When I 
think about that Holly Hobbie game 
and its association with the warm 
love of my family and early child-
hood, it’s easy to quietly disregard 
the time’s miserable meltdowns and 
ever-present stress.

“I think that there’s a way of see-

ing the past that way as being sim-
pler than it was a lot of times,” Hol-
lis said. “It doesn’t mean the past 
was without its problems, it means 
that the conditions of the present 
are looking at the past in particular 
ways.”

After hearing from Hollis and giv-

ing it more thought, I believe what 
we have learned and experienced in 
our past is necessary to propel us to 
elevated personal happiness and suc-
cess, but our past should not prevent 
us from advancing to the nextstages 
of our lives. The past is an indispens-
able mechanism for learning and 
growth so long as we use it wisely 
and moderately. 

A rewatch of your favorite Disney 

Channel show or a scream-singing 
session of 2000s pop hits may not 
clue us in on how to solve a global 
pandemic, but they can, and have, 
kept our endurance high in these infi-
nitely trying times. When the present 
reality feels suffocating and stressful, 
sometimes the best escape is to allow 
ourselves, even just for a moment, to 
revert back to the simple joys of be-
ing an imaginative, naïve child. Nos-
talgia essentially provides us with 
the chance to time travel, allowing 
us to rediscover the brightest aspects 
of our past in order to motivate and 
comfort us in the present.

ILLUSTRATION BY EILEEN KELLY